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Poll: Universal DH In 2020?

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When MLB commissioner Rob Manfred spoke back in 2018 about the possibility of adding a designated hitter to the National League, revealing that the dialogue “probably moved a little bit,” MLBTR readers responded in what was probably the most evenly-split poll we’ve ever conducted here; among 13,118 respondents, there was a 50.07 to 49.93 percent result ever so slightly favoring the status quo and keeping the DH to the American League only.

Circumstances have changed in 2020, to say the least. Over the weekend, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported that the proposal the league is preparing to present to the Players Association includes a designated hitter in both leagues for the 2020 season — a measure aimed at keeping pitchers healthier during a shortened schedule that could include an abnormally brief ramp-up period, increased doubleheaders and/or fewer off-days.

If such measures are put in place this year, that will surely serve as a litmus test of sorts for a more permanent implementation of the rule. Adding a DH in the NL has been a hotly debated and oft-discussed topic for years now, as NL purists lament the potential loss of strategy while those in favor of the DH point to the general futility of pitchers at the plate.

The primary reason the league would favor the change, in the long term, would be to increase the regularity of balls in play. Pitchers batted a combined .128/.160/.162 last season in 5173 plate appearances (a negative-18 wRC+) — and that was their best offensive showing in the past five years. But that was also due in part to a BABIP spike, it seems, as pitchers struck out at a woeful 43.5 percent clip — their worst mark ever. Conversely, the league-average non-pitcher hit .256/.327/.443 with a 22.4 percent strikeout rate. Dropping pitchers for even league-average bats in those DH spots would have resulted in about 1100 fewer strikeouts over the course of the season (plus another 606 bunts).

On the other side of the coin, fewer double-switches would occur, and managers would be spared the occasional decision of whether to let a hot pitcher hit with runners aboard in a close or scoreless game. Those decisions are among the most cherished strategic elements of the game for many fans — particularly those who grew up up in NL cities or prior to the implementation of the DH entirely. We just passed the four-year anniversary of Bartolo Colon’s iconic home run, and there’s nary a more universally rejoiced oddity than watching Big Sexy’s home run trot against the audio backdrop of an elated Gary Cohen roaring, “Bartolo has done it! The impossible has happened!” Highlights of that nature are rare, but it’s that very scarcity that makes them such instant classics and treasured memories.

With all that in mind, and recognizing the unprecedented circumstances under which the league and union are working to put together some semblance of a season, let’s check in on some thoughts regarding the addition of a DH to the senior circuit. I know many in the anti-DH crowd would vote to remove the DH in the American League. However, it doesn’t seem that either the union or league would have cause to prefer that route, so I opted not to include it as an option — but feel free to voice it in the comments (link to poll for Trade Rumors mobile app users).

Let’s Name The Defining Trade Of The Past Decade

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Back at the start of the year, I ran down the most memorable trades of the preceding decade. It was tough to nail down the swaps that I found most compelling; many folks wrote in with others that I added in an honorable mention section. In some cases, people suggested deals that were highly notable to them but relatively unexciting to me. Just as with the game itself, we all experience the hot stove differently.

At the time, I was gathering up the most notable deals. I thought about doing a ranking, but dismissed the idea. It was tough enough to pull together a list. Now I’ve come to wonder … in spite of our differing experiences, and the inherent subjectivity of it all, can we find some amount of consensus on the topic?

I don’t want to spread this too thin, so I’m not going to include every deal mentioned in the original post. Oh, and I went ahead and included a new entrant! You should read the original post on the subject — or click the links below to the deals themselves — for more details on the swaps. I’ll present them here in chronological order.

Brewers Acquire Zack Greinke (12/19/10)

Royals Acquire James Shields, Wade Davis (12/9/12)

Red Sox, Dodgers Complete Nine-Player Blockbuster (8/25/12)

Blue Jays, Marlins Complete 12-Player Blockbuster (11/13/12)

Blue Jays Acquire Josh Donaldson (11/28/14)

Padres Acquire Craig Kimbrel (4/5/15)

Wilmer’s Tears: Astros Acquire Carlos Gomez, Mike Fiers / Mets Acquire Yoenis Cespedes (7/31/15)

Diamondbacks Acquire Shelby Miller (12/9/15)

Cubs Acquire Aroldis Chapman (7/25/16)

Red Sox Acquire Chris Sale (12/6/16)

Astros Acquire Justin Verlander (9/1/17)

Marlins Trio: Yankees Acquire Giancarlo Stanton / Cardinals Acquire Marcell Ozuna / Brewers Acquire Christian Yelich (12/17-1/18)

Dodgers Acquire Mookie Betts, David Price (2/9/20)

You have a baker’s dozen to choose from. The response order is randomized in the poll. Let’s name the defining trade of the past decade! (Poll link for app users.)

Which CPBL/KBO Team Are You Adopting?

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It may not be the majors, but the Taiwanese and Korean leagues have offered us all a chance to watch competitive baseball while MLB is on hold. Surely some MLBTR readers are partaking … no doubt a few have even adopted new favorite teams.

It’d be even easier to fall in love with these fun leagues if fans were in attendance. Having attended some Japanese games in person myself, I can tell you it’s quite an experience to see how the game is enjoyed on the other side of the Pacific. But even without the full pageantry, there’s a lot to enjoy — bat flips, of course, being the best-known form of punctuation.

So, if you’re following the Chinese Professional Baseball League and/or Korea Baseball Organization, which team have you taken to rooting for? For those that haven’t yet decided, here’s the list … with the team’s former MLB players noted in case you need some help picking.

CPBL

KBO

A Shortstop Showdown

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While they’re not in the same division, a pair of centrally based major league teams have produced a couple of the majors’ top-performing shortstops. The White Sox of the American League Central have seen Tim Anderson turn into a rather valuable player. The same goes for the Cardinals of the National League Central and Paul DeJong. They’re pretty similar in value, age and contract situations, but which of the two would you rather have?

Anderson, 26, was a first-round pick in 2013 who debuted in ’16 and took some time to find himself as a major league hitter. In 1,643 plate appearances from his first year through 2018, he hit a below-average .258/.286/.411 (86 wRC+) with 46 home runs and 51 stolen bases. A high strikeout rate (26 percent) and a low walk percentage (3.4) were part of the problem. Those K/BB trends largely stayed in place last year (2.9 percent and 21 percent, respectively), but Anderson nonetheless found another gear a hitter. He slashed .335/.357/.508 (130 wRC+) with 18 homers and 17 steals en route to a career-best 3.5 fWAR (he combined for 4.1 in the prior three seasons) and an AL batting title. Of course, he was also the beneficiary of a .399 batting average on balls in play – up .110 points from the previous year – and Statcast wasn’t as bullish as his bottom-line production (.363 weighted on-base average versus .328 expected wOBA).

Shifting to the defensive side, Anderson hasn’t been a consistently good player, at least not according to the metrics. By Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating, he has been a plus player twice and a minus fielder twice. The most recent campaign fell into the latter category, as he posted minus-12 DRS with a minus-9.1 UZR. DeJong, meanwhile, has greatly outdone Anderson as a defender since debuting with the Cardinals in 2017. Last season, for instance, DeJong put up 26 DRS and 11.4 UZR, making him one of the sport’s top fielders.

Also 26, DeJong has graded as a solid performer on a regular basis dating back to his first game in the majors. He has been at least a 3.0-fWAR player every season, including a career-high 4.1 mark in 2019. DeJong, unlike Anderson, has struggled to hit for average of late, but he was a 30-HR man last year – a season in which he finished with a .233/.318/.444 mark (100 wRC+) across 664 plate appearances. Going by wRC+, it was the third consecutive time that DeJong registered league-average or better offensive numbers. That and his excellent defense have combined to make DeJong quite valuable for St. Louis.

Beyond the production on the field, you have to consider the two players’ contracts when comparing them. They’re pretty alike in that regard, too. Anderson inked a six-year, $25MM extension heading into the 2017 season. That deal also includes a $12.5MM club option for 2023 and a potential $14MM salary the next season. Whether or not the White Sox pick up either option, they’re surely not regretting the gamble now. Likewise, the Cardinals must be happy that they locked DeJong into a six-year, $26MM pact prior to 2018. That deal includes a $12.5MM option for 2024 and $15MM in ’25.

There’s a lot to like about both of these shortstops, but if you have to pick one, whom would you want on your team? (Poll link for app users)

Who’s The Top 2020-21 Free Agent Starter?

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There’s a lot of time left to assess the 2020-21 free agent class. It would help to have, y’know, some actual baseball to help inform. But in the absence of that, we can still make some assessments based upon what we already know.

Scanning the upcoming group of open-market starters, there’s no clear top arm. It’s certainly possible that one or more hurlers will significantly boost his stock with a big (partial) 2020 season, as we’ve seen in recent years from guys like Zack Wheeler and Patrick Corbin. But it’s pretty clear we’re not going to see another $200MM+ pitcher in the upcoming offseason.

There’s necessarily some serious guesswork here, but let’s see what the MLBTR readership anticipates. Here are the candidates we’ll consider … which is likeliest to be the top free agent starter? (In alphabetical order below, randomized in the poll.)

  • Trevor Bauer: Well, we just gave you our best early guesses on camera. There’s no denying the upside here, as exhibited in his monster 2018 season. Bauer has all the necessary tools and is a curious craftsman when it comes to driving improvement. With a strong showing, he could be chased by quite a few contenders that find appeal in the idea of a rental ace.
  • Mike Minor: The results have been quite good and Minor’s health issues have faded. Perhaps his two lost seasons (2015-16) can even be spun as a bit of an advantage, in that he wasn’t logging mileage on his arm in that span.
  • Jake Odorizzi: Here’s a hurler that is easy to overlook. Odorizzi is coming off of a 3.51 ERA campaign and can’t be issued another qualifying offer.
  • James Paxton: With a long layoff, Paxton has had an opportunity to rest his surgically repaired back. That could help him more than any other player on this list.
  • Jose Quintana: Steady production. Excellent durability. He was probably somewhat unfortunate to post below-average results in 2019.
  • Robbie Ray: Probably the favorite for top dog status … and yet … the strikeout numbers are gaudy, but so are the walk rates. And Ray hasn’t consistently turned swings and misses into output. He owns a 4.11 ERA and landed higher than that mark in 2019.
  • Garrett Richards: When he’s healthy, he’s usually pretty awesome. Richards is recovered from Tommy John surgery and well-rested.
  • Marcus Stroman: It’s possible we’re not hyping Stroman enough. He just turned in 32 starts of 3.22 ERA ball.
  • Masahiro Tanaka: Through his six years in the majors, Tanaka has run up over a thousand frames of 3.75 ERA pitching.
  • Other: There’s a case that you’d be best off betting on the field. There are some talented arms out there who could launch back into big-contract status with a strong showing in 2020. Among them: Alex Wood, Kevin Gausman, Taijuan Walker, Michael Wacha, Jimmy Nelson, Anthony DeSclafani, Cole Hamels, Rick Porcello, Drew Smyly, etc.

Who’s the favorite to be the market leader? (Poll link for app users.)

A Battle Of NL East Superstars

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We’ve seen two of the brightest young offensive stars in baseball emerge in the National League East over the past couple years. The Braves’ Ronald Acuna Jr. and the Nationals’ Juan Soto have been enormously successful since they made their debuts in 2018, and the outfielders have played important roles in helping lead their clubs to prominence. The Braves have taken the division in each of Acuna’s two seasons, while Soto was among the reasons the Nationals won their first-ever World Series last fall. The two look as if they’ll be franchise cornerstones for the long haul, but if you can only have one, which player would you pick?

Going by production, there hasn’t been a huge difference in their careers so far. The 22-year-old Acuna’s a 9.3-fWAR player through his first 1,202 plate appearances and a .285/.365/.532 hitter with 67 home runs, 53 stolen bases and an excellent wRC+ of 133. The righty masher fell just shy of a 40/40 effort in 2019, when he smacked 41 dingers and swiped an NL-high 37 bags. Furthermore, Acuna has fared respectably as a defender thus far – including as the Braves’ primary center fielder last year – with 16 DRS and a minus-0.6 UZR to this point.

By measure of wRC+, Soto has been an even more effective hitter than Acuna. Soto, who only became old enough to legally drink as last year’s World Series was going on, owns a jaw-dropping 143 mark in that category. The lefty swinger’s a .287/.403/.535 batter with 56 homers and 8.5 fWAR through 1,153 PA, though he doesn’t come close to Acuna in terms of stolen bases (17). Acuna’s overall defensive output has also been better, but Soto did make strides in that area last season. After putting up minus-6 DRS and minus-4.2 UZR as a rookie in left field, he improved to zero and minus-0.7 in those categories as a sophomore.

The overall numbers Acuna and Soto have managed at such young ages have been astounding. But you can’t just consider production when comparing the two. One of the key facts about Acuna is that his team has already locked him up for the foreseeable future, as the Braves extended him to an eight-year, $100MM guarantee after his first season. With $17MM club options for 2027 and ’28, the deal could keep Acuna in place for almost the whole decade. That’s a lengthy commitment and a lot of money, but it has nonetheless always come off as a no-brainer move from Atlanta’s perspective.

The Nationals would surely love to sign Soto to a similar pact, but it’s hard to believe they’ll get him on such a team-friendly deal. At the very least, though, they do still have the right to control the Scott Boras client for the next half-decade, including one more pre-arbitration year if a season does take place in 2020.

The bottom line is that you can’t lose with either of these players, no doubt two of the greatest assets in the sport. But you’re only allowed to build around one of them, so take your pick…

(Poll link for app users)

MLBTR Poll: A 3-Division Plan

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Many ideas have been floated in regards to how a 2020 Major League Baseball season might work. We’ve seen two-, three-, five-, 10- and 12-state plans come to the fore. The possibility of every major league team playing in its home stadium without spectators has also been mentioned. The latest unconventional suggestion became public Tuesday, when Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported MLB could start sometime in late June or early July and scrap the traditional American and National Leagues for a season and shift to a three-division plan consisting of 10 teams apiece. Here’s how it would shake out…

East:

  • Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Nationals, Orioles, Phillies, Pirates, Blue Jays, Rays, Marlins

West:

  • Dodgers, Angels, Giants, Athletics, Padres, Diamondbacks, Rockies, Rangers, Astros, Mariners

Central:

  • Cubs, White Sox, Brewers, Cardinals, Royals, Reds, Indians, Twins, Braves, Tigers

The 10 teams in each division would only play one another during the regular season, so you wouldn’t see, say, the rival Mets and Braves match up. It’s a bizarre setup for those accustomed to a six-division league, but everybody’s health permitting, wouldn’t a weird baseball season be better than no baseball season at all? What do you think about this idea? (Poll link for app users)

Poll: Would You Watch KBO Broadcasts?

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This morning’s report that ESPN is in the midst of seemingly productive talks to acquire the broadcast rights for Korea Baseball Organization games was met with a widely positive response in comments both here and on social media, although the potential arrival of KBO coverage in North America wasn’t universally lauded. While many fans would welcome any form of competitive baseball on television and relish a chance to see some former big leaguers suiting up with regularity, others questioned the level of competition (relative to MLB) and the awkwardness of watching televised games without fans in the stands.

KBO games coming to ESPN — and/or other major sports networks elsewhere in the world — isn’t yet a certainty but would at least provide some real-life baseball to follow if such an arrangement did come to fruition (no disrespect to the Players’ League in MLB The Show intended). I was perhaps remiss not to include a formal poll in this morning’s post on the topic, so let’s conduct a more formal survey here (link to poll for Trade Rumors mobile app users):

Poll: Should MLB Adopt Tied Games In 2020? (Or Beyond?)

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We don’t know if any Major League Baseball games are going to be played in 2020, nor what tweaks we’ll see to the standard framework of a game if play does resume.  To recap some of the ideas have been publicly floated, teams could potentially end up playing the entire season at MLB stadiums and Spring Training parks in Arizona and Florida, regularly playing at least one doubleheader per week in order to fit as many games as possible into a truncated schedule.  We already heard last month that the league was planning to allow 29-man rosters for at least the start of a shortened season, and it could very well be the case that expanded rosters become the norm for any games played in 2020, owing again to the need to keep as many players fresh and healthy as possible for this sprint of a season.

The changes may extend to the on-field product itself.  Doubleheaders could be staged as two seven-inning games, rather than standard nine-inning contests.  Dodgers star Justin Turner recently proposed the idea that, instead of extra innings, teams would decide games in 2020 by having a Home Run Derby if the score was still deadlocked after a 10th inning.  As Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times noted in that last link, an abbreviated season could also give MLB the opportunity to apply its automatic-baserunner experiment for extra innings (already used in the All-Star Game and World Baseball Classic) to regular season contests.

These are all interesting ideas, and frankly, no concept should be off the table given all the difficulties the league faces in trying to launch any kind of season while keeping players, team staff, and stadium personnel as safe and healthy as possible.  That said, the traditionalist baseball fan in me can’t help but be hesitant at alterations to the nature of the sport itself.  Something like an expanded roster isn’t an issue, but holding a seven-inning game or deciding an important regular season contest with a HR derby doesn’t seem quite right.

If limiting the time of games and the extra innings conundrum are going to be obstacles, The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli (subscription required) recently suggested a simple proposal — tie games.  Every regular season contest would end after nine innings, no matter the score.  As per one reader e-mail to Ghiroli, MLB would adopt a point system of awarding two points for a win, one point for a tie, and zero points for a loss.

It can definitely be argued that ending extra innings is much more of a fundamental shift in baseball’s nature than, say, putting an automatic runner on second base in the 10th inning onward.  After all, there’s definitely a romance to the idea of a game that always has a decisive winner.  Just about every baseball fan has at least one personal story of attending a marathon game until the very end, or showing up bleary-eyed at work the next day after staying up very late to watch their favorite team finish a West Coast game that went 14 innings.

It’s worth noting, however, that the threat of a tie score adds its own level of drama to games.  As Ghiroli notes, it creates “a real emphasis on winning in nine innings, the drama unfolding over the final three outs because there is no more baseball.  Managers won’t have to save guys in the bullpen or think about who may be needed to play the field in the 10th.”

Postseason games, naturally, would still have as many extra innings as necessary to decide a winner.  But for the regular season, a tie game in baseball wouldn’t be any different than a tied football game or a tied soccer game, both of which are familiar concepts for sports fans.  While there may be some level of dissatisfaction in watching a game that ends without a clear winner, a tie has its own sort of “we’ll get ’em next time” feel that is particularly fitting for baseball, particularly since that proverbial “next time” could be the very next day.

Rather than limit draws to just a 2020 season, Ghiroli suggests that tied games could become a regular element of baseball going forward.  “We know viewership — on TV and at the game — drops the longer a game goes,” Ghiroli writes.  “We know baseball is constantly fighting the stigma of being long and boring.  We know, more than ever before, thanks to oodles of data that exhaustion increases the chances of injury and a game with its stars hurt suffers greatly.”  Adopting tie games wouldn’t be too much of an impact on the overall schedule; to use the 2019 regular season as an example, no team played more than 19 extra-inning games last year.

Let’s open it up to the MLBTR readership to get other views about both the idea of tie games or other late-game methods of deciding a winner, both in a 2020 season and beyond.  (Links to both Poll One and Poll Two for app users).

MLBTR Poll: Red Sox Punishment

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After a long wait, we finally learned of the official outcome of the Red Sox sign-stealing investigation. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred docked the team its 2020 second-round pick. He also suspended the club’s replay coordinator, J.T. Watkins, after determining that Watkins had at times used a TV feed during games to figure out an opponents’ signs and then conveyed that information to “a limited number of Red Sox players,” who could then attempt to apply it if they reached second base. There was evidently no evidence of a broader effort by team leadership, which (per Manfred) had in fact “consistently communicated MLB’s sign-stealing rules to non-player staff and made commendable efforts toward instilling a culture of compliance in their organization.”

Manfred took a much harsher view of the conduct of the Astros, whose World Series-winning 2017 club was judged to have engaged in a broad-based, long-running, and rather expansive effort to ascertain signs and convey them in real time to batters. The Houston organization was docked four top draft choices and $5MM, while its manager and general manager were hit with year-long suspensions.

A slightly lesser (season-long) ban has now been applied to former Astros bench coach and Red Sox manager Alex Cora, though Manfred made clear it was for his conduct while in Houston. Cora lost his job in Boston over the offseason after the Astros fired A.J. Hinch and Jeff Luhnow. Former Astros player Carlos Beltran also departed his managerial gig with the Mets before it really even started.

Since the actions against Cora didn’t stem from his time with the Red Sox, it wasn’t really part of the punishment. The team will have to fill in for Watkins, though that action was obviously targeted primarily at him personally. As for the lost draft pick, Manfred made clear he levied the punishment because the Red Sox may have benefited, not because of any organizational failing.

When we polled the MLBTR readership on Manfred’s handling of the Astros case, most felt it was either on the mark or too light. How do you feel about his actions with regards to the Red Sox? (Poll link for app users; response order randomized.)

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